In the autumn of 1866, while living at his family’s home near Aix-en-Provence, Cézanne undertook a series of paintings of his maternal uncle, Dominique Aubert, in different costumes. Here, he dons a robe and tasseled blue cap; in another work in the Museum’s collection, he poses as a monk (1993.400.1). A friend reported in November: "Every day there appears a [new] portrait of him." Cézanne applied his paint directly with a palette knife on the coarsely woven canvas, giving these pictures what he called a "gutsy" character.

Probably the sitter, the artist's uncle, Antoine Dominique Sauveur Aubert, Arles (until summer 1899; presumably one of twelve works by Cézanne sold to Vollard); [Ambroise Vollard, Paris, 1899; sold July 10 with a "tête de femme" by van Gogh for Fr 1,000 to Rosenberg]; [Alexandre Rosenberg, Paris, 1899; purchased for equivalent of $120; sold for $180 to Pellerin]; Auguste Pellerin, Paris (ca. 1899–1916); [Josse Hessel, Paris, 1916–20]; [Marius de Zayas, New York, 1920–at least 1921; sold to Bliss]; Lizzie (Lillie) P. Bliss, New York (ca. 1921–d. 1931; bequeathed to the Museum of Modern Art); Museum of Modern Art, New York (1931–51; cat., 1942, no. 83; 1948 ed., no. 127; sold to MMA)

New York. Museum of Modern Art. "Memorial Exhibition: The Collection of the Late Miss Lizzie P. Bliss, Vice-President of the Museum," May 17–September 27, 1931, no. 1 (as "Self Portrait [L'Avocat]," bequeathed to Museum of Modern Art).

James Johnson Sweeney. "The Bliss Collection." Creative Art 8 (May 1931), p. 357, mentions the influence of Courbet in this picture; states that "it is in such a work we first find the genius of Cézanne effectively declaring itself".

Jerome Klein inThe Lillie P. Bliss Collection. Exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art. New York, 1934, pp. 5, 9, 21–22, no. 1, fig. 1, dates it about 1865; lists five additional portraits of Uncle Dominique and notes that they are different from the self-portraits in physical appearance and conception.

Modern Works of Art. Exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art. New York, 1934, pp. 11, 23, no. 1, ill., dates it about 1865.

René Huyghe. Cézanne. Paris, 1936, pp. 12, 32, 67, fig. 11, calls it "L'Oncle Dominique" and dates it about 1865; erroneously locates it in both the Pellerin collection and the Reber collection.

Robert J. Goldwater. "Cézanne in America: The Master's Paintings in American Collections." Art News Annual, section I (The 1938 Annual), 36 (March 26, 1938), p. 136, calls it "Man in the Cotton Cap"; discusses the "solidity and repose" of this picture and two portraits of Uncle Dominique in private collections (V77, R104; V76, R103) in comparison to the intensity of Cézanne's self-portraits.

R. H. Wilenski. Modern French Painters. New York, [1940], p. 10, pl. 3, calls it "L'oncle Dominique" and dates it about 1866.

Sheldon Cheney. The Story of Modern Art. [4th reprint, 1947]. New York, 1941, pp. 210–12, ill., dates it about 1866; compares its pictorial structure to Daumier.

[Paul Rosenberg]. Paintings by Cézanne (1839–1906). Exh. cat., Paul Rosenberg & Co. New York, 1942, p. 19, under no. 1, recounts that when his father [Alexandre Rosenberg] bought this picture for $120, no one appreciated Cézanne, leading his father to sell it to Pellerin for $180, with a letter stating "'I am glad to have found someone crazier than I am, to buy this work at a price higher than the one I paid'".

Painting and Sculpture in the Museum of Modern Art. New York, 1942, p. 30, no. 83, ill., calls it "Man in a Blue Cap (Uncle Dominique)" and dates it 1865–66.

John Rewald. The History of Impressionism. New York, 1946, ill. opp. p. 40 (color), calls it "Man in a Blue Cap (Uncle Dominic)" and dates it 1865–66.

John Rewald. The Ordeal of Paul Cézanne. London, 1950, pp. vii, 36–37, pl. 4, calls the sitter one of Cézanne's favorite models and notes that he was a bailiff.

Daniel Catton Rich inCézanne: Paintings, Watercolors & Drawings. Exh. cat., Art Institute of Chicago. [Chicago], 1952, pp. 16–17, no. 5, ill., dates it 1865–67; calls it the most intense of a series of spontaneous portraits, "some of them done in a single afternoon".

Lawrence Gowing and Ronald Alley. An Exhibition of Paintings by Cézanne. Exh. cat., Royal Scottish Academy Building. Edinburgh, 1954, unpaginated, under no. 2, date the series of paintings of Uncle Dominique between August and December 1866, while Cézanne was in Aix.

Melvin Waldfogel. "The Bathers of Paul Cézanne." PhD diss., Harvard University, 1961, vol. 1, p. 30, calls the Uncle Dominique series "the beginning of Cézanne's education as a modern painter" and notes in it the influence of Courbet and Manet.

Charles Sterling and Margaretta M. Salinger. "XIX–XX Centuries." French Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 3, New York, 1967, pp. 96–97, ill., as "Uncle Dominic"; refer to it as "one of the richest in color of the paintings of this period".

Charles S. Moffett. Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1985, pp. 176–77, 253, ill. (color), calls it "Dominique Aubert (Uncle Dominic)" and dates it to the fall of 1866; notes that because each of the paintings in this series was executed quickly in an afternoon, with thickly applied paint, they have developed cracks; describes the cap worn in this picture as the type worn by local peasants and speculates whether Cézanne, his father, a hatmaker, or the sitter owned the hat; calls the works of this series "the most extraordinary pictures produced in the 1860s," observing that they are "virtually sculpted in paint".

Gary Neil Wells. "Metaphorical Relevance and Thematic Continuity in the Early Paintings of Paul Cézanne, 1865–1877." PhD diss., Ohio State University, 1987, pp. 71–73, 76–81, 106 n. 53, p. 276, pl. XVIII, suggests that here Dominique may be dressed as an artist, noting that Cézanne sometimes wore a smock while at work; compares the jacket to that in Courbet's "Pierre-Joseph Proudhon [sic] and his Family" (1865–67; Musée du Petit Palais, Paris) and the cap to one in a self-portrait (Bayerische Staatsgemaldesammlungen, Munich; V284, R510); concludes that it depicts the generic costume of a "middle-class professional, representing Dominique in a role not unlike Cézanne's own father, a man who could move comfortably between trade and profession, artisan and bourgeois class"; observes that for Cézanne "the artisan represents training, talent and skill".

Lawrence Gowing inCézanne: The Early Years 1859–1872. Exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts, London. New York, 1988, pp. 9, 92, 100, 102, 104, 112–14, 182, 215, 218, no. 22, ill. (color) [French ed., Paris, 1988, pp. 22, 86, 92, 94–95, 100–101, 152, 188–89, 200, 205, 211, no. 22, ill. (color)], calls it "The Man with the Cotton Cap (Uncle Dominique)"; dates it about 1866, noting that the series was executed between August 1866 and January 1867; comments that in this picture the sitter dons the role of "an artisan and a man of the people".

John Rewald with the research assistance of Frances Weitzenhoffer. Cézanne and America: Dealers, Collectors, Artists and Critics, 1891–1921. The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, Princeton, 1989, pp. 327, 349, figs. 170 (installation photo), 171, calls it "Portrait of Uncle Dominique" and dates it about 1866.

Nina Athanassoglou-Kallmyer. "Museum News: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 'Cézanne: The Early Years, 1859–1872'." Art Journal 49 (Spring 1990), pp. 72–74, fig. 2, dates it 1866; compares Cézanne's use of the palette knife in pictures such as this one to Maurice de Vlaminck's later "brutal carvings of pigment"; comments that the portraits of Dominique Aubert represent "emblematic portrayals of contemporary social types," through the use of a variety of headgear and costumes, calling ours "a bourgeois in his nightcap and robe".

Kirk Varnedoe. "The Evolving Torpedo: Changing Ideas of the Collection of Painting and Sculpture of The Museum of Modern Art." Studies in Modern Art. The Museum of Modern Art at Mid-Century: Continuity and Change. 5, New York, 1995, pp. 50–51, 55–56, 59, 61–62, ill. p. 42, as "Dominique Aubert, the Artist's Uncle (Man in a Blue Cap)"; reproduces Museum of Modern Art documents listing this picture as part of an "ideal collection" of nineteenth-century paintings and as among the paintings that would eventually be sold to the MMA.

John House in Sona Johnston. Faces of Impressionism: Portraits from American Collections. Exh. cat., Baltimore Museum of Art. New York, 1999, pp. 22–23, fig. 11 (color), compares the paintings of Uncle Dominique to Rembrandt's self-portraits depicting the artist in metaphorical or biblical guises.

Originally referred to as a self-portrait, this work was identified as a portrait of Cézanne's uncle in 1923 [see Ref. Rivière 1923]. It belongs to a series of nine portraits of Dominique Aubert that Cézanne painted in the fall of 1866 at his father's home, the Jas de Bouffan in Aix. The other portraits are in the MMA (1993.400.1; R107), the Musée d'Orsay, Paris (R106), the Norton Simon Art Foundation, Pasadena (R102), King's College, Cambridge, on loan to the Fitzwilliam Museum (R111), and various private collections (R103, 104, 105, 109).